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AWS Builder Center Finally Gets a Mobile App! Connect Talent GA and Corretto 27 Round Out a Packed Week!

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Hi, I'm Shii-chan! Today I want to walk you through this week's AWS Weekly Roundup — there's so much packed in that I barely know where to start!

AWS Blog aws.amazon.com

What was announced?

The AWS Blog's "AWS Weekly Roundup" rounds up the major updates from the week of September 21, 2026. The three headline items are:

  • The AWS Builder Center mobile app (iOS and Android) has launched
  • Amazon Connect Talent is now generally available (GA)
  • Amazon Corretto 27 is GA

On top of that, there's a new Bedrock model and a new EC2 instance type, plus more news developers will want to catch.

Why it matters

AWS Builder Center is where you read community articles, take skill-building courses, and follow AWS Heroes — until now, you could only use it in a browser. Now that it's a mobile app, you can check in on the go. The post's author, who commutes by train in the Netherlands, mentioned starting to use the app during their commute.

Connect Talent moved from preview to GA, and Corretto 27 is this year's new long-term-support OpenJDK release. Both represent features moving from "trying it out" to "ready for real production use," which is the key point here.

What changes

  • With the Builder Center app, you can manage over 600 AWS Skill Builder courses, browse trending articles, and run free sandbox workshops right from your phone
  • A new "Polls" feature lets you ask the community questions — 2 to 5 choices, anonymous voting, live results
  • With Amazon Connect Talent, you can run structured AI voice interviews 24/7, with evidence-based scoring. Recruiters get scores, transcripts, and detailed evaluations all in one place
  • Moving to Corretto 27 gets your Java apps the latest language features and free security updates through April 2027

Dive Deep

Corretto 27 brings a few understated but welcome changes:

  • G1 is now the default garbage collector
  • TLS 1.3 now supports post-quantum hybrid key exchange
  • Compact object headers reduce memory footprint
  • Java Flight Recorder can now redact data in-process

Bedrock also gained a new model from Moonshot AI called Kimi K3. It has 2.8 trillion parameters and a 1-million-token context window, with roughly 2.5x better scaling efficiency compared to the previous Kimi K2.

On the instance side, the EC2 T8i instance, powered by 6th-generation Intel Xeon Scalable processors (Granite Rapids), is now GA. Compared to T3, it delivers up to 30% better price-performance and 70% higher compute performance.

The roundup also covers AWS Elastic Beanstalk's new cluster mode (running multiple applications on shared infrastructure on Amazon EKS, supporting Java, .NET, Python, Node.js, PHP, Ruby, and Go) and an expanded AWS Well-Architected Streaming Media Lens (including scenarios like Amazon IVS Real-Time supporting up to 25,000 concurrent viewers).

Wrap-up

  • The AWS Builder Center mobile app launched for iOS and Android, with a new Polls feature
  • Amazon Connect Talent is GA, offering AI voice interviews and evidence-based hiring scores
  • Amazon Corretto 27 is GA, headlined by a default G1 collector and post-quantum TLS support
  • Bedrock added Kimi K3, EC2 added the T8i instance, and Elastic Beanstalk and the Well-Architected Lens both got updates

This one's for developers who like to keep a broad eye on AWS, or anyone who wants a quick catch-up on the latest in Java and AI models.

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